Enter & View: Nightingale Care Home

Our Authorised Representative gathered feedback from relatives and visitors, including at a residents' meeting and through follow-up phone interviews, to understand people's experiences and identify where improvements were needed.

Key findings

• Feedback on the home was highly inconsistent — over half of interviewees rated it poor or very poor overall, while a small number were very happy and spoke very positively.
• At the relatives' meeting, all but one attendee said they were generally happy with the care currently being offered, with several noting it had improved considerably over the previous two months.
• Staff caring, the safety of the home, and the quality of food were seen as relative strengths, with many visitors praising individual staff by name for their kindness, dignity and respect.
• Most people also mentioned having observed staff being impatient or rude to residents, though they felt this was the exception rather than the rule, and many attributed this to understaffing rather than staff attitude.
• The safety of the building and use of equipment such as hoists were generally rated satisfactory to very good, though some inconsistencies in practice were noted (e.g. only one person operating a hoist, or staff smoking outside together leaving residents unsupervised).
• Communication with relatives and involvement in their family member's care were consistently rated poorly, with only one interviewee feeling the home was good at this — though some noted improvement over the previous two months.
• Responses to complaints and requests varied widely, from very positive experiences to a report of no response after 60 days.
• Lack of stimulation and activities was the most commonly raised concern, with no one feeling the current three days a week was sufficient.
• A small number of interviewees raised concerns about leadership, and some visitors said they had never met the home's owner or regional managers.
• Many relatives expressed concern about the potential closure of the home, valuing its long-standing role at the heart of the local mining community.

Read the full report for the complete findings